He’s a freshman cornerback on a San Diego State defense that has been ripped and tested by four quality quarterbacks with high-flying passing offenses, but Damontae Kazee can’t wait for the next receiver to come his way.

In that way, Kazee is a typical cornerback who can get instant amnesia and remember only the good as SDSU, 2-3, tries to even its record Thursday at Air Force.

It helps that Kazee leads all freshmen in the country with three forced fumbles and is tied for fifth overall. He forced a fumble in the third quarter of Saturday’s wild 51-44, overtime win over Nevada. It came on a corner blitz of the Wolf Pack gunslinger, quarterback Cody Fajardo. It set up the Aztecs’ offense for a touchdown. But as much as the freshman corner enjoyed that blitz action, it was the sure interception he dropped in the fourth quarter that bothered him. It could have preserved a win that ended up going into overtime before the Aztecs secured it.

“I had it,” said Kazee, a 5-foot-11, 175-pound redshirt freshman out of San Bernardino High. “I didn’t use my hands. I tried to use my body, and it bounced right off me.”

Kazee is the younger brother of former Aztecs running back Walter Kazee, who was an Aztecs captain his senior season last year and was voted the team’s Most Inspirational Player. Kazee finished with 1,852 yards rushing, now 14th all-time on the Aztecs career rushing list, and 17 touchdowns. He’s still living in San Diego, working here and coaching at Santa Fe Christian High.

Head coach Rocky Long said the two Kazee brothers are as “different as a running back and a cornerback.”

“Running backs tend to be more serious guys,” Long said. “Good cornerbacks are more free-spirited. You have to be. No matter how bad things are you can’t act like they’re bad. You have to strut around like you’re confident.”

Kazee fits that Deion Sanders kind of role. Through five games, in addition to leading the Aztecs with three forced fumbles, Kazee is fifth on the team in tackles with 22 (17 solos). Long’s 3-3-5 defense utilizes five defensive backs and relies on rotating players.

“They’re out there the whole time,” Long said. “We’ve been putting a lot of pressure on our corners because we can’t get sufficient pressure on the quarterback with the four -man rush. So we’re blitzing a lot and that puts our corners in a lot of man-to-man situations. And when you’re in man-to-man it’s either feast or famine.”

Cornerbacks coach Tony White said Kazee has earned a nickname that he is trying to shake.

“He’s highly aggressive, and he has had to learn how to play more under control,” White said. “Being a young guy he’s very instinctual and aggressive. He brings a little bit of that flavor to the group . . . I’d rather not say the nickname because he’s trying to get rid of it. It’s like he’s a wild dog out there, and if you don’t hone him in on what he’s supposed to do, then sometimes he’s not where he needs to be.”